25 February 2011

Until an ending is scripted, the people of Benghazi take heart from speculation and rumor. Air force pilots and navy ships that have defected to Malta have reportedly said they were sent to bomb Benghazi but refused. Other unconfirmed stories had pilots parachuting and sending their aircraft crashing just to avoid targeting the rebels. In one account, two pilots — one for Gaddafi and one against — engaged in a fistfight in midair before the anti-Gaddafi pilot won and diverted the plane. In more gruesome reports, military officers who refused to do their missions were supposedly executed in Tripoli's airport as well as in bases across the north. But these will merely be stories told to pass the time while the real drama — and its all too serious conclusion — continues to unfold. -- TIME

23 February 2011

“It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.”—Frederic D. Huntington, Forum Magazine, 1890.

22 February 2011

"'The operating assumption for so long has been that Arab populations really can't be trusted with democracy, and will somehow screw up freedom in a way that makes either dictatorships or Islamist revolutions inevitable,' says Bader Lejmi, a 25-year-old Franco-Tunisian, whose working to add a sociology diploma to his degree in business. 'That's built on a lie, and is a reputation all Arabs want to be rid of, since the assumption it's built on applies just as well for Arabs in Europe as it does those in the Middle East and North Africa.'" -- TIME